I'm diving into the Arduino world after playing with the Basic Stamps for a few years and I'm a bit lost to say the least. I recently purchased the MEGA 2650 R3 and a TFT Touch Shield V1 to play with. Information on these seems to be pretty scattered. I'm confused about what libraries are for and how to acquire and install them. I've been trying to upload example sketches without success. I know I have a long way to go but it appears that the initial phase of learning with the Arduino is not very intuitive. Any guidance/patience would be greatly appreciated.
Have you set the IDE to the correct Arduino board ?
Did you install the IDE in Windows ?
Are you using Windows at all or an other OS ?
Start practicing with the Arduino only, so without any shields attached.
So start with the basics (again).
Once you get the hang, you can consider skipping examples because you have some experience in programming (that's an assumption)already.